Kenny Omega Says Will Ospreay & Jay White Didn’t Do Enough To Lead NJPW

Kenny Omega has little positive to say about the two gaijins that were supposed to have taken his place in New Japan after he left, those being Will Ospreay and Jay White.

Prior to becoming a pivotal player in AEW’s formation, Kenny Omega was without question the top foreign star in New Japan. In the span of three years he went from being a semi-comedic junior heavyweight, to the Bullet Club’s new de-facto leader, to the first non-Japanese wrestler to win the G1, to quite possibly the top wrestler in the entire company and, according to some fans, the best wrestler in the world.

But after he left New Japan, that company struggled to fill the void Omega left behind. Some fans believe that Will Ospreay took Omega’s spot as the foreigner that has intense matches with the company’s native main-eventers. At the same time, the Bullet Club needed a new leader and that role fell to Jay White until earlier this year when he left the company for AEW as well.

Looking back at what happened to his former home, Kenny Omega hasn’t thought much of either Ospreay or White, and took the time to shine a spotlight on their shortcomings in an interview with TSN ahead of this Sunday’s Forbidden Door event.

“I’d felt there were pieces of unfinished business. I sort of left the company in the state of needing people to fill my shoes. You know, I had assumed a lot of responsibility within that promotion. I had pretty much wrestled in most or if not all of the big matches on my way out of the door with New Japan.

And I knew that if I had left, the last thing I would want was for the company to be in a bad position with someone not ready to assume that main event role. And I thought that I’d had two likely candidates that can hold the reins. Keep the fort together and put forth a very unique but New Japan worthy effort in Switchblade, and Will Ospreay.

“As someone who had made Japan my home and for something that was so important to me, being New Japan, I had always kind of kept up with the things while I was even doing AEW. And I just sort of felt like they weren’t doing enough.

They weren’t doing enough and maybe they need a trial by fire, and to see by example one more time, just what it is that I’m really, I’m asking them what is required from them to be the face of the company to be the driving force behind the company.

So I felt it was very important for me to go back to that promotion, challenge for the belt. And it just so happens that I won the belt, and now things are back in control, as if it’s 2018 all over again.”

Kenny Omega will have to back up some of his harsh words as he has to deal with Ospreay challenging him for the IWGP United States Heavyweight Championship in a rematch from Wrestle Kingdom 17.

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h/t Inside The Ropes for the transcription